Repentance
'' |image= |series= |production=40840-259 |producer(s)= |story= Mike Sussman and Robert J. Doherty |script= Robert J. Doherty |director=Mike Vejar |imdbref=tt0708958 |guests=Jeff Kober as Iko, Tim deZarn as Yediq, F. J. Rio as Joleg and Greg Poland as Voyager Security Officer |previous_production=Lineage |next_production=Prophecy |episode=VGR S07E13 |airdate=31 January 2001 |previous_release=Lineage |next_release=Prophecy |story_date(s)=Unknown |group="N"}} (2377) |previous_story=Lineage |next_story=Prophecy }} =Summary= Voyager responds to a distress call, beaming all the people off a Nygean ship which is about to explode. Most are sent to Voyager's cargo bay, but two of them are sent to sickbay, where one takes Seven of Nine hostage. He is forced away from Seven and attempts to take the Doctor hostage. This fails as the Doctor is invulnerable to a common knife. It turns out the ship Voyager rescued was carrying prisoners to a facility where they are scheduled to be executed. Since there is no capital punishment in the Federation, the crew are uncomfortable with the situation, but the Prime Directive forbids them from interfering. They provide cages for the prisoners, who are treated brutally by the Nygean guards. Neelix insists that the prisoners must be fed and the Doctor insists they must receive proper medical care. Seven considers this a waste of resources, since the prisoners are going to be killed anyway, but the guards agree to allow the prisoners to have meals. After a particularly brutal beating by a guard, one of the prisoners, Iko, is seriously wounded. The Voyager guards are forced to rescue Iko by drawing weapons on the Nygean guards. Captain Janeway subsequently orders Voyager's security personnel take over guarding the prisoners. The Nygeans protest but Janeway gives them no choice. Iko undergoes a medical procedure in which Borg nanoprobes are injected into his system; not only do the probes repair his injuries, they also seem to have restored the parts of his brain responsible for empathy, and he begins to feel remorse for his crime. At first, Iko wants to be executed for all he has done, but he becomes close to Seven, who sees in him a reflection of her own struggles for atonement for all she did as a Borg. Since under Nygean law, the victim's family decides the punishment for all crimes, Iko eventually appeals to his own victim's family for leniency. He tells them that he is cured, is sorry for what he has done, and hopes to start a new life on Voyager. The family denies his request. Meanwhile, Neelix becomes friendly with a Benkaran prisoner named Joleg, who explains minority Benkarans are subjected to racial profiling by Nygeans. Joleg persuades Neelix to get a letter through to his brother, but this turns out to be a ruse - Joleg has hidden Voyager's coordinates inside the letter, and the ship is attacked by others of Joleg's race. Joleg has organized a prison break so his co-conspirators can free him, but the plot is foiled by the Voyager crew. Neelix, who understands he was being manipulated, turns his back on Joleg. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # Corey Hines on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 6:58 pm: Thought Seven's nanoprobes were located in her injestion tubes on her hand. Jwb52z on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 7:29 pm: The tubules are just a passage way for nanoprobes like they are in the male testicles for sperm. The only difference is that they are stored in the testicles. The nanoprobes are also throughout Seven's body. # Why do they design force fields to hurt of you touch it for a long time. I thought they were just artificial walls. The pain from prolonged contact may be intended to deter any further contact. # Aaron Dotter on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:00 pm: Why didn't they just keep the prisoners sedated or in stasis? Then the possibility of them escaping would have been eliminated. It may not have been possible for any number of reasons - lack of available stasis tubes/physiological incompatibility/prisoner reluctance etc. # Spornan on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:01 pm: What reason did they have to go at impulse? PaulG on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:59 pm: Impulse does make sense here. Since they are meeting up with an alien ship while heading in the opposite direction, they should go slow. They are also delaying the executions which is probably intentional. ''inblackestnight on Thursday, May 03, 2007 - 8:19 pm:''I would think the crew of Voyager would want to rid themselves of these passengers ASAP, so what makes sense is for them to be meeting the other ship halfway at warp speed. If they wanted to delay the executions why not take the time to help repair the damged ship while waiting for the other? # Shane Tourtellotte on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:20 pm: Can The Doctor make only part of himself insubstantial? Tuvok's phaser shot passed through him, but Iko still had a grip around him. Shouldn't Iko's arm have passed through at the same time? Not if the insubstantiality – is that even a word? - only affects the torso, and not the neck. # On Neelix's menu tonight: liola rice pilaf. Now, liola was a root, not a rice, right? (Or is liola the pilaf part of the recipe?) Or it’s a pilaf with leola and rice! # All the while Paris is complaining to Neelix that he's famished, he's one foot away from a bowl of fruit, but doesn't think to grab anything. He knows better that to take something without Neelix giving him permission. # At one point while Iko's still considered dangerous, The Doctor leaves a padd in the surgical bay. According to my old ST-TNG manual, padds can be used to interface with the ship's computer, and are capable of even steering the ship remotely. Is that something you want to leave in the hands of a hardened criminal? This could be a restricted access/read only version. # D.W. March on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 10:31 pm: '' Does no one in the 24th century know how to build a proper jail cell? Voyager was obviously able to put those jail cells together pretty fast so why not put some mechanical restraints over the door? If the jail cells had bars in front of the entrance, the prisoners wouldn't have been able to get out! '''It may not have been possible to produce strong enough bars in the time available.' # At the end, Seven feels guilty about killing people. But IIRC, the Borg don't kill their victims, they assimilate them. All she really did was invite a bunch more people to the biggest party in the galaxy! You call that a party? Assimilation subjects it’s victims to a living death! # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 1:42 am: The food hole in the forcefield seemed ridiculous. MarkN on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 4:16 am: I thought that was actually kinda cool. The food could be passed to the prisoners without the prisoners being able to attack the person giving them the food and making a break for it. I just wondered why they didn't come up with it sooner, especially as I was watching a rerun of Thirty Days right after this ep.PaulG on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 9:50 am: Now that I think about it, the feeding hole in the force field is dangerous if used improperly (which it was, of course). The prisoner could easily have grabbed Neelix's hands and wrists, especially since the dimwit put his hands through the hole instead of forcing the prisoner to reach for the food. The criminal could then test the force field with Neelix's face, arms or body while using the force field and Talaxian's body as shields against the phasers. The only way to stop the prisoner (other than letting Neelix get beat up unmercifully until the prisoner tired or Neelix died) would be to lower the force field which is exactly what a criminal bent on escape would want. Jackknight on Sunday, February 04, 2001 - 7:26 pm: There are dozens of better ways to feed prisoners than the hole-in-the-force-field method, e.g. (off the top of my head) 1) Guard points phaser at inmate and lowers the field, then tells him to back into the corner; Neelix sets down bowl in opposite corner; field goes back up 2) Bowl placed in front of cell by Neelix, Neelix and guards stand at farthest end of corridor and release inmate's field; inmate ordered to take bowl into his cell or else; field put back up 3) Data's cascade scan phase from Brothers: force fields shrink cell to half its depth; bowl placed inside cell; field expands to original depth 4) "One bowl to beam in—energize!" Seniram 21:20, August 7, 2018 (UTC) 1) Wouldn’t it make sense to order the prisoner to back into the corner BEFORE the field is lowered and Neelix puts the bowl down? With your method, the inmate would be close enough to jump Neelix and the guard as soon as the field was lowered! 2) This would increase the risk of the inmate making a run for the end of the corridor. 3) The force field could contaminate the food when it expands across the bowl. 4) The force field would surely be designed to inhibit transporter operation. # Brian Lombard on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 5:11 am: As of TOS, the Federation still makes use of the death penalty, for those who would journey to Talos IV. Maybe it's been lifted by the 24th century, but it's not that foreign a concept to these folks. They sound very hypocritical. Hans Thielman on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 12:10 pm: Did the Federation abolish the death penalty for visiting Talos IV? PaulG on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 12:52 pm: Hans: IIRC, I believe it was revoked in The Menagerie. Rene on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 1:03 pm: No it wasn't. They just ignore it for that one occasion.Brian Lombard on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 1:49 pm:''It was still in place by the time of Turnabout Intruder 2.5 years after The Menagerie.''Seniram 21:20, August 7, 2018 (UTC) it could still have been abolished after that. # I'd like to take a moment to examine Paris's comment about never believing inmates claims to being innocent. Since he's been in the Delta Quadrant, he's been framed for three different crimes. (Ex Post Facto, Investigations, and Fair Trade). You'd think a guy with that track record would be a little more sympathetic. Jackknight on Sunday, February 04, 2001 - 7:26 pm: Tom was also framed in The Chute, wasn't he? Well, he and Harry were unjustly imprisoned, anyway. ''Seniram 21:20, August 7, 2018 (UTC)''Maybe his experience of having his innocence constantly ignored has made him slightly cynical about claims of innocence from others. # Alleycat on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 11:42 am: I guess I'm the first to realize this, but why was the Warden carrying a Federation Phaser (which of course taken away by the 'nice' prisoner)? Isn't that against the Prime Directive too? I guess if they give away replicators technology, they feel that they can give anything away too… PaulG on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 12:52 pm: The aliens were probably only borrowing the weapons. With eight murderers on the loose, Tuvok probably asked the alien guards for help and gave them the nearest available weapons. I doubt they would be allowed to keep them. # The Undesirable Element on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 2:25 pm: Didn't anybody check the letter before transmitting it to this guy's brother? Scanner on Thursday, February 01, 2001 - 3:12 pm: The letter was traced, it wasn't the contents of the letter that gave away Voyager's position. # Interesting how Iko makes his personal plea in front of the entire bridge crew. I think I would have preferred to do that in private. It's interesting how he wasn't too passionate about his release. It is consistant since he said that he deserves to die and that he can't live with the guilt. At least he has independent witnesses to confirm what he said at a later date. # The guy welded the door shut with a phaser. How did the phaser know to melt the door and not cut through it? he obviously figured out how to adjust the settings to allow this. # Jackknight on Sunday, February 04, 2001 - 7:26 pm: Tuvok calls for a transport of some loose inmates and is conveniently informed the transporters are offline. He could've used shuttle transporters (as Riker would've done in Power Play). They may be offline as well. # ScottN on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 1:10 am: At the beginning, Janeway says they can't interfere because of the Prime Directive. Doesn't that only apply to non-warp capable societies? Spornan on Monday, February 05, 2001 - 2:13 am: Prime Directive means a lot of things. It means they cannot CONTACT pre-Warp societies. It also means they can't get involved with the internal affairs of another culture. That's why they couldn't get involved with the Klingon Civil War. =Notes= Category:EpisodesCategory:Voyager